KADAPA: The district police achieved a major breakthrough in curbing red sanders smuggling by arresting notorious international smuggler Ashok Kumar Agarwal in Rajasthan and seized red sanders logs and red sanders toys worth Rs 4 crore from him. Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, SP A Babujee said that on a tip-off, special police teams went to Rajasthan and conducted raids on the godowns at Raghunathpura and Sarna Doongar in Jaipur. The police arrested smuggler Ashok Kumar and seized 164 red sanders logs weighing 3.2 tonnes and 44 toys made of red sanders. The seized red sanders logs and toys are worth Rs 4 crore.
The SP said that notorious red sanders smuggler Abdul Naeem was arrested at Bellary in Karnataka a few months ago. During interrogation, he revealed that they were selling red sanders to Ashok Kumar through another international smuggler Ali Bhai alias Kaka, who lives in Indonesia. Ali Bhai has links with red sanders smugglers in Dubai, China, Singapore and Indonesia and sending red sanders logs to them through containers.
The SP said that he had discussed the matter with DGP M Malakondaiah, who spoke to his Rajasthan counterpart over phone and sought help in nabbing the red sanders smuggler.
The SP formed three special teams led by Additional SP (Operations) Adnan Naeem Hashmi.The teams went to Jaipur and kept a vigil on the movements of Ashok Kumar for a month. On February 9, when he was at his godown, the police swooped on it and arrested him. The arrested smuggler was brought to Kadapa and produced before the media.